In recent years, personal computer software has become a major consumer industry and sales of pre-packaged software have grown enormously. Generally sales of personal computer software have been carried out in two ways. About half of the sales are by mail order, which does not afford the consumer the possibility of experiencing use of the software prior to purchase, and denies the consumer instant gratification because he must wait for delivery of the software by mail or courier.
The remainder of personal computer software sales are retail. Retail sales of personal computer software are considered to be costly due to high stocking requirements and the requirement of relatively skilled salespeople, thus increasing the cost of sales and the ultimate cost to the customer.
At the same time, software carriers have become more standardized, so as to enable most types of software to be embodied one of a relatively small number of conventional diskette formats.